In the same year, Kim was decorated by Felipe VI, King of Spain, with La Orden del Merito Civil (Cruz de Oficial).

Before he passed away in 2022, O-Young Lee, the legendary South Korean literary and cultural critic, said that he had always thought of Seong-Kon Kim as his intellectual and spiritual heir and successor.

Kim received his Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo, under the direction of the late Leslie A. Fiedler who first announced the Death of the Novel in the early sixties.

His books on postmodernism, postcolonialism, and cultural studies have greatly influenced writers and scholars in the Korean republic of letters.

[IMG_03] His Herald columns have frequently appeared in international media such as The Nation, the Progressive Party, USA, the China Post, the AsiaOne, the Pakistan Observer, the Star, Yahoo!

Actively engaged in promoting Korean literature overseas, Kim was vice president of the Seoul Literary Society which consisted of foreign ambassadors and high-ranking diplomats stationed in Seoul (2012–2017) and is a member of the advisory committee on Korean literature of White Pine Press in New York.

Kim is also honorary president of the State University of New York at Buffalo Alumni Association's South Korea chapter.

In 2015, Kim received the Distinguished Teaching Professor Award from the Central Government Officials’ Training Institute in the Ministry of Interior and his name entered the Hall of Fame in 2018.

In the same year, he was appointed as a part-time visiting professor at the National Human Resources Institute in the Ministry of Personnel Management.

In 2016, Kim was awarded the Plaque of Distinguished Accomplishment on behalf of LTI Korea from the Management Assessment Team of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

As vice chair of the Seoul International Forum for Literature in 2000, 2005, and 2011, Kim worked with the eminent scholar and literary critic Kim Uchang and together brought a host of celebrated international writers to Seoul, including Pierre Bourdieu, Jean Baudrillard, Le Clezio, Orhan Pamuk, Oe Kenzaburo, Gary Snyder, Robert Coover, Robert Hass, Margaret Drabble, Gao Xingjian, Bei Dao and others.